SOK (band)

SOK
	General information
Genre (s)	Jazz rock
founding	1971
resolution	circa 1975
Founding members
guitar	Günter Dobrowolski (†)
Organ, electric piano, piano, vocals	Ulrich Gumpert until 1973
Bass guitar	Gert Lübke
Drums	Günter Sommer until 1973
Alto saxophone	Rainer Gäbler
Tenor saxophone	Konrad Körner until March 1971
Trumpet, violin	Robert Tornev (†)
trombone	Hermann Anders
Last occupation
singing	Gisela Dreßler
guitar	Günter Dobrowolski
Bass guitar	Gert Lübke
Drums	Rainer Riedel
Trumpet, flugelhorn, harmonica, percussion	Jochen Gleichmann
Trumpet, violin	Robert Tornev
Tenor saxophone, flute	Helmut Forsthoff
trombone	Hermann Anders
former members
singing	Bärbel Folz until 1972
flute	Rainer Gäbler
saxophone	Rainer Paschy (†)
Guests
Alto saxophone	Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky
Trumpet	Hans-Joachim Graswurm

SOK was an East German band that combined jazz with rock music at a high level and was formed before such a fusion "became fashionable" in the GDR.

Band history

With the end of the beat movement in the early 1970s, the dance music scene in the German Democratic Republic was in a general phase of upheaval. Existing bands were looking for new musical forms. New bands emerged. In the course of this development, the bands began to devote themselves to new musical directions, such as blues or soul music . Well-known musicians such as Klaus Lenz , Günther Fischer or Reinhard Lakomy began to devote themselves increasingly to jazz and enjoyed a high priority, especially among the intellectual audience, who were mainly jazz-enthusiastic. The group SOK was one of the most important jazz-rock formations in the GDR at that time. The core of this brass formation was a quartet consisting of electric guitar, electric piano, bass guitar and drums.

Guarantors of the high musical level of the band, founded in 1971, were musicians such as Ulrich Gumpert (piano, organ, vocals, composition, arrangements, bandleader), Günter Baby Sommer (drums), the saxophonist Helmut Forsthoff and the guest musician Ernst-Ludwig Luten Petrowsky . These musicians had a solid, mostly classical musical training. Gumpert and Sommer had also taken their first steps in long-standing formations such as the Manfred Ludwig Sextet and the groups of Klaus Lenz and Friedhelm Schönfeld . The founding line-up also included guitarist Günter Dobrowolski, Gerd Lübke (bass guitar), Robert Tornev (trumpet, violin), Rainer Paschy (saxophone) and Hermann Anders (tuba, composition, arrangements). Lübke and Dobrowolski came from the beat scene. At times, Hans-Joachim Graswurm also played as a guest musician with SOK. The group presented themselves on June 7, 1971 at Jazz in the chamber .

In 1972 the line-up of the band was supplemented by the singer Barbara “Bärbel” Folz. In the middle of 1973 she was replaced by Gisela Dreßler, who had a distinctive blues voice.

At the end of 1973 Gumpert and Sommer left the band, played as a duo and founded the Synopsis formation in order to dedicate themselves to free jazz . They were replaced by drummers Rainer Riedel and Jochen Gleichmann (trumpet, flugelhorn, harmonica). In this line-up, SOK took part in the performances The new sufferings of young W. at the Deutsches Theater .

The band's most successful productions included SOK-Rock by Gumpert and SOK-Oriental by Anders, which were broadcast regularly on DT 64 . Typical for the sound of the band was a style of playing that, after rocking intros, was keen to experiment and penetrated into the field of free jazz. This musical concept brought together the sometimes quite different musicians and established the band's success. But in the course of time the urge to realize one's own musical ideas prevailed, and SOK disbanded in the mid-1970s.

Discography

CD

1994: SOK (aho recording)

Sampler

1996: Blues for R. (on Beatkiste Vol.5 , Buschfunk)

LP

2014: SOK - Der Grüne Vogel (Black Pearl Records)

literature

Michael Rauhut : Beat in the gray area . BasisDruck Verlag GmbH, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-86163-063-X .
Bert Noglik , Heinz-Jürgen Lindner: Jazz in conversation . New Music Publishing House, Berlin 1978.
Werner Sellhorn : Jazz - GDR - Facts Neunplus 1 Edition Art Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-936033-19-6 .

Web links

Portrait at ostbeat.de ( Memento from July 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (archive version)
Bert Noglik: From “Synosis” to “Central Quartet” Part I MDR.DE ( Memento from February 23, 2004 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

↑ Interview with Ulrich Gumpert, in: Bert Noglik , Jazz in conversation , p. 55.
↑ “Playing at SOK was born out of the intention to develop music according to one's own ideas. However, the interests of the individual musicians turned out to be quite different in the long run. Everyone had to make concessions from their own side. ”Interview Günter Baby Sommer, in: Noglik, Jazz in conversation , p. 176.

[1] Interview with Ulrich Gumpert, in: Bert Noglik , Jazz in conversation , p. 55.

[2] “Playing at SOK was born out of the intention to develop music according to one's own ideas. However, the interests of the individual musicians turned out to be quite different in the long run. Everyone had to make concessions from their own side. ”Interview Günter Baby Sommer, in: Noglik, Jazz in conversation , p. 176.